Is Windows Phone Nearing An Inflection Point?

Microsoft launched its Windows Phone more than a year ago but has failed to gain traction and remains in the giant shadows of Apple’s iOS and Google‘s Android, which dominate the market.

However, there have been some encouraging signs of late that could signal that the future looks brighter for the tech giant. It has device partnerships with some of the top smartphone makers like Nokia, Samsung, HTC and LG, and even manufacturers like ZTE, which specialize in lower cost devices targeting toward emerging markets like China. We believe these partnerships could help the company make more inroads into the smartphone market in the coming years.

Windows Phone Still Adds Little to Firm

It recently launched Windows Phone Tango with which it plans to target the budget smartphone market to quickly grab market share from Android and iOS. It also made its official entry into China last week and hopes to beat Apple in terms of sales in the next couple of years.

The company also plans to continue to target the high end smartphone segment with premium smartphones by Samsung, HTC and Nokia, and it will release Windows Phone Apollo specifically for that segment later this year.

On the developer front, it has made significant progress in the last two months. The total app count in the Windows Phone Marketplace is now 70,000, up from 50,000 in December 2011. [1] Though it’s still just a fraction of the total apps in Apple’s iOS App Store or Google’s Android Market, the collection of apps is still large enough to attract customers.

Though capturing more global smartphone market share may give Microsoft some bragging rights, we do not expect it to have any significant impact on its overall value in the near term, which is still derived primarily from Windows and Office. We expect the pending launch of Windows 8 to be the main focus for the company this year.

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I totally LOVE my windows Mango phone.. Super impressed so far ( used for 1 year).. People integration scenarios like FB,Twitter etc are so well nailed. Add to this, Office, XBOX, Skype(hopefully) and Sharepoint integration and we are all set !!

Having been someone who took a chance on a Windows Phone. A HTC Trophy from Verizon. I can certainly say after several months of use that although I was happy with the price I paid. I am not really happy with Windows Mobile. For me the Tiles on a small screen create just as much scrolling as having icons like Apple or Android. I do not see any positives. I think Microsoft thought that having the active tiles would speed up information. But they are so small they cannot provide much information. The only one I even consider useful is the temperature one. The other issue that Microsoft and its partners do is flooding the market with these cheap smart phones in hopes of attracting buyers. The drawback is these phones will quickly become dated, broken and useless.

Microsoft is caught on the left hand side of the street. And as retailers will tell you, trying to sell on a lefthand turn is hard. You have to have something with a strong appeal to get drivers to turn left, otherwise they just drive past and hit the gas station on the right.

The average phone buyer is a lot like the average person driving home, they will fill the tank on the right they will buy fast food on the right. But they will not turn right unless they need to.

So what could make consumers “decide” instead of default to apple.

The product it is very good but lacks the huge number of apps and social status.

The price its no better or no worse than anyone else so that is a loss too.

The Brand (microsoft) it is seen as uncool , tied to drones and something your dad struggled with.

So what a corp to do?

The clear and easy answer is compete on price. and this can be done on a number of fronts. 1 the carriers 2 hardware makers and 3 the consumers

Anyone number of these can be effectivly paid to push the phone. I suggest MSFT works on all three.

as to consumers just suddenly loving it and moving MSFT into strong position, yeah sure it has worked so well to date that msft market share has dropped to a footnote.

I LOVE my windows phone. So much that I gave my iPod to my daughter when I upgraded from the blackberry phone. The Windows Mango phone does everything I need and much more than my old blackberry. I hope it lasts and continues to improve. I love being able to see if any of my xbox live friends are playing a game I might want to join, and I have found all the apps that I used on the iPod and installed them on my new Windows phone with no problem, plus a few extra.

They’ve taken time to get the phones lined up, but AT&T during April is going to give Microsoft a big kick. Will the Lumia 900 from Nokia, and the HTC Titan 2, coupled with a huge ad spend, get them to double digit marketshare by the end of the year? Frankly if they reach 8% they should be happy That’s a good platform for Windows [Phone] 8 to build on